fireworks vs. firecrackers

I guess I can understand fireworks, with their pyrotechnical bombast (like this sentence), luminosity in the night, concussive heart-thumping, high-decibel drama, and aesthetic symmetry -- not to mention their evocation of adult and youthful oohs and ahs. I consider fireworks a communal and celebratory ode to military use of ordnance in accord with ancient traditions. We can debate the demerits or merits of corporate or municipal fireworks, but not here, not now.

Firecrackers are something else altogether. I think of firecrackers as one-offs for personal use. I don't get them or their use. What's the point? Especially M-80s, or whatever the hideously loud ones are called. I might even get it if, in America, firecrackers were ignited simultaneously, making a common statement (what sort of statement, I honestly can't say for sure) at an opportune time, such as the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve (apparently this was a huge thing in Berlin, at least several years ago). 

But a random firecracker in the middle of the night? What's the point? Is it some sort of audible chest thumping? A provocation, a spit-at-you-all, a testosterone rant, a protest, a type of trash-talking? 

Perhaps my opposition to firecrackers derives from memories of my boyhood, when neighborhood kids would insert a firecracker or two under the turtle's shell. Just to watch him die, to borrow from a Johnny Cash tune. (I can't be making this memory up.) I was not immune to lighting the little firecrackers that looked like birthday candles. We also had a habit of breaking one in half and then stomping on it. Smart. 

On this Fourth of July I'd gladly forgo hearing one more firecracker, though it is merely 1:23 a.m. The holiday is just beginning.But it's beyond me what this has to do with independence, freedom, and all that.

Bada-Dada-Boomerang

A few minutes ago, my ears heard the rumble of early Fourth of July fireworks a few miles away. Which got me reassessing, as any Laughorist would. Do I really enjoy fireworks?

Less than I thought, if I really examine my fireworks conscience. I've come to believe it's one of those things one is supposed to ooh and ahh over (one of those predictive happiness things explored by Daniel Gilbert). Granted, a few moments ago the neighboring Inner Harbor fireworks were merely an auditory apparition, not the visual array of chrysanthemums and umbrellas of neon-hued ashes punctuated by sonic bursts. I mean, fine, okay, I enjoy fireworks and all that, but I'm finding on closer inspection it's a predictive pattern. It's a social norm. I'm not convinced it's worth the traffic jam or mosquitoes or long day's journey into dark-enough dusk.

It's possible the fireworks I've encountered have been subpar, and that I must defer judgment until I experience Grucci-generated millennial, apocalyptic, transcendent fireworks in New York, London, Beijing, Berlin, or Boston. Maybe my fireworks encounters have been, shall we say, or-chasmic.

Which reminds me. Why do corny old movies depict orgasm via fireworks imagery, especially for females? (I may be wading into more-than-usual embarrassing waters here. For all I recall, that particular imagery was only employed in crummy 1970s porno flicks, or so, um, I've heard, not obscene.) Is that what the female-peak-sexual-nerve-ending-heart-stopping experience is like? Fireworks? Is it the sound? The visual configuration? The colors? The rocket's red glare? Somehow I doubt it (though I have no doubts that "their" experience is far more transporting than our male deal, except maybe for 1.4458 seconds).

I confess a vague, unpatriotic feeling, a hazy guilt about this fireworks, quasi-Freudian admission.

Maybe it's my age; perhaps it's my contrarian nature. It might even be that I've experienced more than enough spiritual, domestic, mental, or workplace fireworks, and don't need anymore.

Give me the verbal pyrotechnics of lustrous prose or poetry. Or sizzling correspondence. Or the belles lettres of fiery bloggers. Now, there's some fireworks.

(Be careful with those cherry bombs now, ya hear?)